Frequently Asked Questions

Helping You Understand and Navigate B2B Sales Consulting

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Our Engagements

The Process

What is your engagement process?

We work side-by- side with our customers as allies and advocates to increase sales effectiveness and drive sustained results. Our five-stage process is more than just sales consulting. It builds alignment and ensures a return on your investment.

Stage I – Discovery:In discovery, we quickly gather the foundational information and insights required for the remaining stages. This stage includes reviewing existing processes, tools and systems. The goal is to supplement the work done to date with a first-hand understanding of the current leadership best practices and coaching/reinforcement challenges within the organization.

Stage II – Workshop:Our workshop drives the design and development of the training curriculum and associated tools. This stage includes a workshop with a selected team to collect, organize, develop and cleanse the necessary processes, tools and knowledge requirements for the upcoming training.

Stage III – Design and Integrate:During this stage, Force Management’s baseline training curriculum is integrated with any existing or to-be- created materials and processes.

Stage IV – Delivery:The purpose of this stage is to deliver the training curriculum to the sales organization based on the content that was created during the previous stages. Our approach for training delivery is based on state-of- the-art adult learning models. At least 60% of the instruction willconsist of role plays and practical exercises that leverage real-world coaching and selling scenarios.

Stage V – Embed:The purpose of this stage is to support the reinforcement of the major trainingconcepts and to ensure the desired learning behaviors are adopted in the short-term and sustained inthe long-term.

How do you use technology to support and extend your engagements?

Throughout our customer engagements, we use several strategic technology applications that allow us to accelerate and extend the learning, adoption, and implementation processes. Our most prominent technology application is The Command Center. The Command Center is Force Management’s Sales Enablement application, providing organizations with a way to consistently engage with our digital content as we prepare for, deliver, and drive adoption of our training methodologies.

We also leverage several other technology and mobile applications to support different aspects of our engagements. These tools are typically influenced by the outcomes our customers are trying to achieve, along with what existing technologies we need to ‘draft into’ in order to make the experience as seamless as possible for learners. We’ve advised hundreds of clients on how best to do this and can share examples of customers who have drafted our specific methodologies into their systems.

What happens after an initial training?

The rollout or the initial training of our methodologies is a small piece to theentire engagement process. At the start of our engagement, we make a plan for adoption and reinforcement. This outline ensures that your sales leaders, enablement team and managers have a plan to reinforce the content that is rolled out in training. Our e-learning platform, The Command Center, helps continue training beyond the first delivery event. Some of our clients also invest in Train-the- Trainer programs that ensure they have people on-site certified to teach our curriculums.

How do you customize the content and build alignment during your sales training initiative?

Our customized sales consulting solutions are built by you, for you. We help our customers build on current best practices and targeting areas of needed improvement. Our clients take ownership during the development and the rollout of their sales transformation process, ensuring that the content developed for training is consumable and adaptable to their entire organization.

From the start, we bring cross-functional leaders together, creating buy-in and alignment across your organization. They’re included in the workshop where the content around your value and differentiation is defined, created and vetted. Our methodology is sales focused, but we know it will not be successful if we don’t have buy-in from pivotal departments (e.g., marketing, product, technical services and customer success). We engage leaders early on in developing the content so when it is rolled out to reps, there’s buy-in throughout the company.

How do you integrate with our internal tools and processes (e.g., CRM)?

We are technology agnostic which means you don’t have to invest in additional technology as part of our engagement. The content we help you create as part of your engagement can draft into any tool, process or technology in which you have invested. We have advised hundreds of clients on how best to do this and can share examples of customers who have drafted our specific methodologies into their systems.

How do you ensure consistency in the execution of your methodology?

We deliver the training curriculum based on the content created in thediscovery, workshop and integration stages. Your reps will be primed for the training through a series of pre-work activities which include online learning modules and executive communication. The instructor-led training is an interactive customized program that is focused on practical application. At least 60% of instruction consists of exercises that leverage real-world scenarios. We believe it’s important that our reps use the methodology with real opportunities in training. This activity ensures immediacy of application. We have several proof points of reps who were able to quickly close deals by leveraging the methodology the day after training.

Consistency in the sales force is also driven by a stringent focus on adoption from the beginning stages of the initiative. After training, our spaced-learning tools, surveys and additional reinforcement mechanisms put a process behind continual measurements. This structure ensures associates are readily using the methodology and have a clear, consistent answer to why customers should choose yoursolution.

How do you help front-line managers?

When it comes to running a sales organization, no one can afford to waste time. High-performing leaders focus on where they can deliver the most value to their sales reps before, during, and after sales activities. One of the fastest ways you can provide impact as a sales executive is to provide processes, tools and content to help your managers succeed.

In many cases, front-line sales managers have the toughest job in the company. They’re trying to motivate, coach, develop, reinforce and inspect their own teams, but they’re also dealing with pressure from top leadership and their customers.

Force Management has developed and refined our training and adoption programs to focus on how first and second-line managers drive sales effectiveness that results in bottom-line impact. We believe they’re a pivotal component to your success. Our offerings have specific learning tracks for the managers. Below are some key areas of focus that we bring to our manager curriculum.

AccountabilityWhat do you want your managers and reps to be accountable for? Best-in- class organizations ensure their front-line sales managers focus on the activities necessary for repeatable success and that they do them well. We help our clients assure your front-line managers are accountable for the right actions by jointly developing a Management Operating Rhythm that defines the actions, frequency, tools, metrics to prioritize their time and effort.

Coaching CadenceYour front-line managers can be your most effective tool to building a team of high-performers, when they have a repeatable operating rhythm that supports consistency throughout your sales organization.

Ensure consistency and improve efficiency by giving your managers the tools that make their jobs easier. One of the most valuable things you can do as a sales leader is to enable your front-line managers to develop their team members and give them the tools they need to coach success.

Remember, managers often find themselves in the sales organization tug-of- war. They’re charged with motivating, coaching and inspecting their own teams, but they’re also dealing with constant pressure from top leadership. The amount of time your front-line managers waste with cumbersome administrative burdens is valuable time that could be used helping their team sell.

When all your salespeople are using the same processes and tools, everyone knows the benchmarks to create success. As a result, your front-line managers are less burdened and there’s consistency throughout the sales organization. They’re able to effectively manage because they’re not wasting time with meticulous forms and inconsistent processes.

It doesn’t matter how many reviews you do with someone, if there’s no focus on executable action, there is no value within the sales team. An operating rhythm helps you as a sales leader drive that action.

When everyone is using the same processes and tools, they’re all speaking the same language and they are all on the same page. As a result, your sales managers then have the opportunity to become sales leaders because everything they do has value attached to it.

Alignment and Customer ValueThe focus of any sales organization should be on what provides and creates value for the customer. Are your front-line managers reacting to what’s urgent, rather than what’s most important?

You’ve likely seen it yourself. Sales managers allow and sometimes encourage the salesperson to become not only the account manager, but the product specialist, the customer service rep, especially when it’s a big account.

More times than not, that multi-tasking is a disservice to the customer and often creates a debilitating ripple effect. Your customer doesn’t get the company’s best. The salesperson bends over backwards, trying to be all things to all people because he/she doesn’t have the resources to pull in the right expertise when necessary. The salespeople don’t have time to sell. The front-line managers are buried in trying to help the salespeople sell. No one is effective because they’re submerged in fire drills.

Building alignment between your sales, services, and product teams alleviates the piling-on effect for your sales teams and front-line managers. It ensures not only a buyer-centric sales process, but also a customer-first service structure.

The Outcomes

How do you measure success of an engagement?

We assess benchmarks throughout the initiative in order to set our clients up for the greatest ROI. We've outlined the major measures below:

Pre-Implementation

Executive support and participation

Timely completion of workplan activities

Timely deliverable reviews & approvals

Completion of pre-work assignments

Leading Indicators

Course evaluations | Adoption surveys

Completion of “commitments to action”

Success stories

Management reinforcement

Operational Metrics (1 - 2x average sales cycle)

Average deal size

Annual Contract Value

MRR/ARR

Average sales cycle

Win rates

Pipeline health

Revenue forecasting accuracy

Time to productivity

Financial Metrics (2 - 4x average sales cycle)

Revenue per sales rep

Margin

Cost of sales

Quota attainment

Customer renewal rates

Engagement ROI

Cost vs. incremental sales revenue

How do you ensure consistency in the execution of your methodology?

We deliver the training curriculum based on the content created in the discovery, workshop and integration stages. Your reps will be primed for the training through a series of pre-work activities which include online learning modules and executive communication. The instructor-led training is an interactive customized program that is focused on practical application. At least 60% of instruction consists of exercises that leverage real-world scenarios. We believe it’s important that our reps use the methodology with real opportunities in training. This activity ensures immediacy of application. We have several proof points of reps who were able to quickly close deals by leveraging the methodology the day after training.

Consistency in the sales force is also driven by a stringent focus on adoption from the beginning stages of the initiative. After training, our spaced-learning tools, surveys and additional reinforcement mechanisms put a process behind continual measurements. This structure ensures associates are readily using the methodology and have a clear, consistent answer to why customers should choose your solution.

How do you help front-line managers?

When it comes to running a sales organization, no one can afford to waste time. High-performing leaders focus on where they can deliver the most value to their sales reps before, during, and after sales activities. One of the fastest ways you can provide impact as a sales executive is to provide processes, tools and content to help your managers succeed.

In many cases, front-line sales managers have the toughest job in the company. They’re trying to motivate, coach, develop, reinforce and inspect their own teams, but they’re also dealing with pressure from top leadership and their customers.

Force Management has developed and refined our training and adoption programs to focus on how first and second-line managers drive sales effectiveness that results in bottom-line impact. We believe they’re a pivotal component to your success. Our offerings have specific learning tracks for the managers. Below are some key areas of focus that we bring to our manager curriculum.

Accountability

What do you want your managers and reps to be accountable for? Best-in-class organizations ensure their front-line sales managers focus on the activities necessary for repeatable success and that they do them well. We help our clients assure your front-line managers are accountable for the right actions by jointly developing a Management Operating Rhythm that defines the actions, frequency, tools, metrics to prioritize their time and effort.

Coaching Cadence

Your front-line managers can be your most effective tool to building a team of high-performers, when they have a repeatable operating rhythm that supports consistency throughout your sales organization. Ensure consistency and improve efficiency by giving your managers the tools that make their jobs easier. One of the most valuable things you can do as a sales leader is to enable your front-line managers to develop their team members and give them the tools they need to coach success.

Remember, managers often find themselves in the sales organization tug-of-war. They’re charged with motivating, coaching and inspecting their own teams, but they’re also dealing with constant pressure from top leadership. The amount of time your front-line managers waste with cumbersome administrative burdens is valuable time that could be used helping their team sell.

When all your salespeople are using the same processes and tools, everyone knows the benchmarks to create success. As a result, your front-line managers are less burdened and there’s consistency throughout the sales organization. They’re able to effectively manage because they’re not wasting time with meticulous forms and inconsistent processes.

It doesn’t matter how many reviews you do with someone, if there’s no focus on executable action, there is no value within the sales team. An operating rhythm helps you as a sales leader drive that action. When everyone is using the same processes and tools, they’re all speaking the same language and they are all on the same page. As a result, your sales managers then have the opportunity to become sales leaders because everything they do has value attached to it.

Alignment and Customer Value

The focus of any sales organization should be on what provides and creates value for the customer. Are your front-line managers reacting to what’s urgent, rather than what’s most important?

You’ve likely seen it yourself. Sales managers allow and sometimes encourage the salesperson to become not only the account manager, but the product specialist, the customer service rep, especially when it’s a big account.

More times than not, that multi-tasking is a disservice to the customer and often creates a debilitating ripple effect. Your customer doesn’t get the company’s best. The salesperson bends over backwards, trying to be all things to all people because he/she doesn’t have the resources to pull in the right expertise when necessary. The salespeople don’t have time to sell. The front-line managers are buried in trying to help the salespeople sell. No one is effective because they’re submerged in fire drills.

Building alignment between your sales, services, and product teams alleviates the piling-on effect for your sales teams and front-line managers. It ensures not only a buyer-centric sales process, but also a customer-first service structure.

There are also factors relating to your elected project manager that can improve your chance of success during the process. Here are some of our ideal tactical daily or weekly activities to consider while working with us:

Able to devote 20-25% of time to the sales initiative

Type-A personality

Responsive and task-oriented with the ability to get things done quickly and correctly

Over-communicates and isn’t afraid to ask questions

Has power and influence… or works closely with someone who has both

Functions well in a team environment

Cares about the success of the project and has “skin in the game”

Respects and trusts the process with an attentiveness to the end-game

What’s your approach to adoption and reinforcement?

The fact that you’re reading this answer means you are in the right mindset to drive a successful sales initiative. What good is a sales initiative if it isn’t adopted and reinforced?

Adoption is the cornerstone of our learning philosophy and consists of five integrated disciplines: Priority, Relevance, Integration, Measurement and Reinforcement.

Priority is achieved through leadership involvement, commitment to participating and “leading from the front” throughout the development, delivery and sustainment processes. Priority also includes leadership commitment to the enforcement, inspection and reinforcement of the training concepts and best practices.

Relevance is achieved by tailoring the curriculum to reflect the real-world selling situations that the sales organization encounters on a day-to-day basis. The sales tools and processes must be specific and “sales consumable” if they are to be perceived by sales reps and/or sales management as a mechanism for enhancing productivity. Our adoption methodology achieves relevancy through the insights and content gathered during the Discovery and Workshop stages.

Integration is achieved through the inclusion of the training concepts and best practices of the existing tools and technology used to support the sales organization. Integration also includes expanding the footprint of the transformational initiative, along with the language and tools, to include other organizations within the company (e.g., Marketing, Product Development).

Measurement is achieved by tying the results of the training program to the key performance indicators of the sales organization. As an integral part of our Adoption Methodology, we co-develop and periodically co-measure key performance indicators through a scorecard system.

The Logistics

How long is an engagement and who needs to be involved?

Our typical initial engagement lasts one quarter, with adoption and reinforcement initiatives ongoing and available as necessary. The people needed varies by offering and scope. Typical attendees at the kickoff and workshop stage include C-level executives, sales leaders, marketing leaders, product leaders. The program is championed by upper management and typically managed by sales enablement. The person who is managing the program internally can expect to devote 25% of his/her time to the initiative.

How do typical customers buy? All offerings at once, or staggered in some order?

Our typical customers buy based on their biggest business challenge. We find that the majority of them start with Command of the Message because sales productivity is almost impossible to improve if you don’t have alignment on your value and differentiation. At the same time, an inability to sell on value manifests itself into a slew of challenges that often spark the need for an initiative.

While many customers buy an engagement that encompasses thefour areas of sales effectiveness, wewould never roll them out all at one time. Rather, we would systemically launch them based on your own internal initiatives and what makes the most sense for your specific organization. Too many initiatives at once hurts adoption and hinders success.

Is it better to deliver one big event or several regional events?

It depends on your company culture and how you want to drive execution. A big event is great for high-energy dynamics and getting a highly consistent message out to everyone quickly. Regional roll-outs take more time, but the group sizes are more intimate and localized. In big events, you can also structure break-outs so smaller teams are working together as part of the larger event. The majority ofthe time, we recommend a big event over regional roll-outs because it is easier to ensure consistency in the message. In international deliveries, we’d recommend you roll-out by larger geographies (e.g., North America, EMEA, APAC).

What to Expect
Someone from our team will call to schedule a call. Save time by sharing availability in the form.During our initial call, we’ll ask questions and do a lot of listening, assessing the challenges you’re experiencing and the effects they’re having on the rest of the business.Then, if relevant, we’ll walk you through how we approach your specific challenges and how we’ve helped companies like yours solve them for the long-term

About Force Management

How are facilitators trained?

Our success starts with hiring the right client-facing staff. Without the right people, it is impossible to drive repeatable success for our customers. Our sales performance facilitators are carefully selected and go through a stringent training and alignment process that is set up to drive operational excellence in all aspects of a client engagement. We have severalclient testimonialsthat speak to our success in drafting in the right people at the right time with our company.

We demand that our facilitators are uniquely able to command a room and have the unique knowledge base to effectively train on the intricacies of your industry. In addition, our methodologies are taught by veteran leaders who have a wealth of experience training customer-facing professionals. Our facilitators have extensive experience in the industries in which our customers operate. They have the practical experience that drives legitimacy in our overall project execution.

What makes you different from other consulting firms?

Our methodologies have proven their success repeatedly, but our biggest strength is the way we engagewith our customers. Wedifferentiate onour process. That success comes from our ability to:

We draft into current processes andtools,and customize solutions based on what’s most important to the client and what will move the needle the fastest. We drive organizational adoption post-training, developing an integrated sales motion and process that’s consumable, practical and repeatable.

We build cross-functional buy-in.Our methodologies are sales focused, but we know they will not be successful if we don’t have buy-in from pivotal departments (e.g., delivery, marketing etc.). We engage leaders early on in developing the content so when it is rolled out to the sales teams, the result is a highly aligned organization.

We enable our clients to adopt and reinforce our methodology throughout the organization.Our engagement process is built in a way that demands the buy-in upfront,but drives reinforcement on the back-end. The purposeful approach to adoption, with a plan that starts from the very beginning of theengagementprovides a clear path and execution approach for successful change management.

Who are your customers?

Our clients are high growth B2B companies who are looking to accelerate growth and improve sales productivity. The majority of our clients are international with a combination of offices and distribution channels in NA,EMEAand APAC. Our work spans the high-tech industry, medical devices,manufacturingand staffing. Hear from our customers by visitingour results page.

What to Expect
Someone from our team will call to schedule a call. Save time by sharing availability in the form.During our initial call, we’ll ask questions and do a lot of listening, assessing the challenges you’re experiencing and the effects they’re having on the rest of the business.Then, if relevant, we’ll walk you through how we approach your specific challenges and how we’ve helped companies like yours solve them for the long-term

Command of the Message®

What is a Value Framework? Is it a script?

A Value Framework isn’t a script. It’s a repeatable framework that guides the customer conversationface-to- face, over the phone and digitally, throughout the customer engagement process. The Framework’s foundation is cross-functional company alignment on the value drivers and differentiators that are top-of- mind for your most influential buying audiences. Clearly defining these buyer topics and the sales message provides on-ramps into multiple levels of the customer organization and allow yourteam’s message to transform and resonate with the appropriate audience. Think of the Value Framework as a navigational aid that helps sales teams engage in a consultative sales conversation focused on value and differentiation in a way that has meaning to the buyer.Individual repscan tailor it to their own selling style. It also can be used as a tool to integrate any previous sales traininginvestments.

Force Management’s customers build their own frameworks with our facilitators who guide them towards clearly defining that value and differentiation for the sales team. Our methodology is sales focused, but we know our sales leader clients will not be successful if we don’t have buy-in from pivotal departments (e.g., marketing, product, technical services and customer success). We engage leaders early on in developing the content so that when it is rolled out to reps, there’s buy-in around the company.

Why is Command of the Message a sales initiative and not a marketing one?

Command of the Message enables sales reps to effectively articulate your value and differentiation at the point-of- sale, then deliver on the promise of that value. This enablement is integral to the function of sales and other customer-facing roles and unfortunately, doesn’t happen without a clear process to get you there.

When marketing invests time, resources and frankly, a lot of hard work creating messages to the industry that attract buyers, reps need the ability to explicitly incorporate that value into their sales conversations.

A sales team’s ability to consistently articulate the value message relies on their ability to draw through the messaging and value that marketing and product teams have established with the buyer.

Effectively engaging your prospects on the value you provide as part of your sales message, leverages the corporate and product marketing messages into impactful, “three-foot” sales conversations that connect the customer’s requirements with your solutions. The sales conversation is where the business strategy turns into revenue generation. Therefore, making a company’s messages highly “sales-consumable,” enables sellers to use them in real-worldcustomer conversations.

That’s why alignment behind a sales messaging platform is so important. Your sales team is responsible for engaging your customers on the value of your solutions. It is critical that marketing, product and sales organizations are aligned on what that value is, because the role they play effectively enables the sales team to articulate that value to a customer.

It’s easy to articulate your product’s features and functions, but that’s not going to help your sales team sell a million-dollar deal. Complex, enterprise sales requires company alignment and high velocity around a focused value-message. Driving that alignment and as a result, enablingyour sales team to have these value-based conversations generated with Command of the Message, you will you improve margins, generate more revenue and make your overall company more successful.

Do I have to train the entire sales organization on Command of the Message? Can I just train my sales team or just the sales managers?

In order to get full alignment and maximum impact, you need to roll it out.

You won’t get consistency and most of them are sales managers – they’re not instructors. Huge difference between a coach and trainer.

Because we know that you won’t get the results that will give you the bottom-line impact you need. Your investment will be wasted on a half-baked program.

Your front-line managers play a pivotal role in driving sales performance. If you just train your sales team, without giving your managers the same training, two things will happen:

They won’t be able to reinforce the content because they haven’t been given the tools, training, and processes to do so.

They won’t buy-in to the initiative because they weren’t included in it and will quickly revert to the old way of doing things.

Similarly, if you just train your managers, your reps won’t have the context they need to adopt the methodology. Remember, change is difficult. Your reps need to see the value in changing how they approach customers. If you don’t make it easy for your reps to change behavior, they will quickly revert to old bad habits.

Our approach has proven successful because of our focus on alignment. This emphasis means our approach is easily adapted to all components of the customer engagement process. We’ve trained services, marketing ADRs, and SDRs around the globe because our engagement approach aligns the entire company on the process, mindset, tools and content we roll out in our trainings. At the same time, the content is developed specifically with your buyers in mind. This outside-in concentration ensures that anyone engaging with those buyers will be able to execute on the content and the process is easily adaptable to other parts of the sales and customer service organization.

What to Expect
Someone from our team will call to schedule a call. Save time by sharing availability in the form.During our initial call, we’ll ask questions and do a lot of listening, assessing the challenges you’re experiencing and the effects they’re having on the rest of the business.Then, if relevant, we’ll walk you through how we approach your specific challenges and how we’ve helped companies like yours solve them for the long-term